Climate Change Education weblog

EMU and Teddy at the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen

The Teachers' COP15 website is edited by the staff at the Danish educational portal - the EMU - http://emu.dk. To help communicate our message to EMU's younger audience we have created the mascot EMU. So the mascot of EMU - The Danish Educational Portal - is EMU - a blue teddy bear which looks a bit like an emu.

Now EMU has a lot of friends because each week EMU visits new places and meets people from all over the world. Danish pupils (0.-3. graders) and teachers can read about EMU in his weblog which is found here (in Danish language): http://weblog.emu.dk/roller/emudagbog/ 

One of EMU's good friends is Teddy. Teddy is of course also a teddy bear and he is from the United States of America. You can also read about Teddys experiences in EMU's weblog.

Actually Teddy and EMU are not just teddy bears. they are "furry agents of cultural exchange". Through a youth outreach programme they facilitate the exchange of Danish and American culture in a collaboration between the EMU portal and the American Embassy in Denmark. To support this goal the US Embassy are creating web pages telling abut american history, culture and politics (the web page is in Danish language):
http://emu.dk.usvpp.gov/ 

This week EMU and Teddy visited the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in the Bella Center. Only accredited visitors can enter the "sacred halls" of the conference so EMU and Teddy were very excited about the visit. Here goes...

By EMU

Hi,
It's COP15 these next two weeks. It all takes place on Amager near Copenhagen. I've been out here with my friend Teddy from the US Embassy in Denmark. There are a lot of people out there. There are around 15000 people at a time. Over 37000 people are expected to visit the Bella Center these two weeks. That's as many people as a medium sized city. We've already experienced all kids of cool stuff. Luckily we took photos.

Here are some of the photos. More will come in the next two weeks.

The Bella Center is huge, so we had to check out the map first.



Then we had to take a look at the program. We found a nice chair designed by the Danish designer Wegner, where we could study today's program.





Right by the nice chairs, there were some big moss-balls that we tried to climb.



There are special garbage cans for all the different types of garbage. That's clever, because everything can be recycled.



We met a guard who wanted to take photo with us, but only one at a time. He wasn't allowed to use the hand he needs for his gun. I thought it was a bit dangerous. The guards are from the UN. That's because the entire Bella Center are is UN territory during COP15.


Do you know Google Earth? It's that program where you can see the entire world on your computer. Google had made a 360 degrees Google Earth where you just had to say what you wanted to see and it would appear on the screen. The machine only understands English. We saw the Niagara Falls first and then we saw the UN headquarters in New York. It was really amazing.


We also went by the US Center. There are exiting lectures every day there about all kinds of subjects that have to do with the climate. You have to pay attention though because it's pretty high level English. You can see all the lecures live on the web (https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/uscenter).


After that we went by the US Press Center. That's where all the journalists who want to know something about the US's ideas to help the climate get all their information.


We also made a new friend today. Our new friend is named Happy Cube and is from Mediators Without Borders. That's an organization that works with conflict resolution. So if someone is in an argument Happy Cube can help resolve it.



Finally we went into where all the action is. The big Plenary. There sure are a lot of chairs there!



I'll send more photos soon.

EMU

Posted at 2009-12-09, 13:11 by Anders Raun in Generelt  |  Kommentarer[0]